The Motorola Droid 3 is the latest phone on Verizon Wireless from Motorola to carry the Droid name, and it’s the third iteration of the phone that started the Android revolution on Verizon. The phone is out now, and one unit made its way to iFixit headquarters where they promptly tore it down for us all to see.

For those not familiar with the newly launched phone, the Droid 3 packs a 1GHz dual-core processor under the hood, a 4″ qHD display, 16GB of on-board storage, and an 8-megapixel camera that can record video in 1080p full HD. It’s a pretty powerful phone with a slide-out keyboard that fans of smartphones with physical keyboards will likely flock to. In fact, the only thing missing from the device is a 4G LTE radio, a fact that Motorola is taking its fair share of lumps over in the Droid 3’s reviews.

Verizon Wireless is trying pretty hard to get people to pick up the Droid 3: they’re offering a buy-one-get-one promotion on the phone even though it just came out. Over at iFixit though, they turned up a few interesting things. Most notably, they discovered a SIM card slot in the Droid 3, even though the 3G phone doesn’t really need one on Verizon Wireless’ network.

What the addition of the SIM card actually means is anyone’s guess. It’s unlikely that the phone is secretly a global device, but it’s possible that Motorola wanted to lay the hardware foundation for a global version to be introduced later. Aside from the SIM card however, iFixit notes that the Droid 3 is built very much like the original Motorola Droid and the Droid 2 – nothing unsual or horribly surprising under the hood.

iFixit didn’t need too many specific tools to get the Droid 3 apart: two Torx screwdrivers, a spudger, and some plastic opening tools, and they had the smartphone open. Still, there are no user-servicable parts in the Droid 3 except for the battery, so there’s no reason for you to do this yourself.